The details

If you’re like me, you always have a huge list of things to do in your home life and work life. If you don’t keep track of them, your life can quickly get out of control. While a pen and piece of paper will do the job, a good task management app can save you a lot stress by making you ‘to do’ list available wherever you are.

The latest such app to cross our radar is Wunderlist. Available for both Mac and Windows, “simple, easy and beautiful” are the three words that immediately spring to mind when you fire it up. Windows users may be surprised to see that their version’s interface shares the sleek ‘Coco’ look of the Mac app, although it doesn’t look quite as sharp as in OSX. A variety of visual themes are accessible with a click, from the default woodgrain look to minimal shades of grey and more extravagant wallpapers.

Wunderlists is about as straightforward as it’s possible to be. A list of tasks in the main panel can be ‘Starred’ as high priority, checked off when done and edited with a click. The side panel allows you to navigated between different lists of tasks, allowing you to create lists for different projects or locations as you choose.

Tasks can be synchronised to a central account, meaning that if you have multiple computers they can all access the same lists. Meanwhile, simple keyboard shortcuts make each operation in the app lightning fast once you’ve learned them.

That’s pretty much it – there are very few frills here – You can set days for tasks to be done on, but there are no reminder alerts, that’s down to you. Wunderlists is simply about keeping track or where you’re up to with your workload. Crucially there’s no mobile app or web interface yet, meaning that when you’re on the go your tasks are inaccessible. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, a more advanced service like Remember The Milk may be a better fit for you. An iOS version of Wunderlist is planned for the future though.

Still, you get what you pay for and Wunderlist is completely free. It will stay that way too, Berlin-based startup 6 Wunderkinder is using the app as a way to get some attention ahead of what it promises to be a much more significant product next year.

If you’re after a really simple, good-looking desktop task manager, Wunderlist is well worth downloading.